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A conversation about North Korea, North Korean troops in Russia, new maritime boundaries, blowing up inter-Korean roads, all of this next on The Impossible State. North Korea is the impossible state. It's a place that stumped leaders and policymakers for more than three decades. It has a complex history and it has become the United States' top national security priority. Each week on this show, we'll talk with the people who know the most about North Korea.
Welcome to another episode of The Impossible State. I'm Victor Choss. I have a new title.
Victor Cha, President of Geopolitics and Foreign Policy here at CSIS and Korea Chair, Professor at Georgetown. As you all know on The Impossible State, we often go across many different topics, everything from Japanese foreign policy to multilateral institutions in Asia. But today we're going to stick to the true name of the podcast and we're going to focus really zero in on North Korea with two of really the world's best experts on this topic.
Let me first introduce Dooyeon Kim, who is here in DC in the studio, in the house, from far away in Seoul, Korea. She is an adjunct senior fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Program at CNAS based in Seoul. Prior to that, she was a senior advisor for Northeast Asia and nuclear policy at ICG, the International Crisis Group.
and an associate in the nuclear policy and Asia programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But when I first met Du Yun was when she was a correspondent, foreign ministry and unification correspondent for South Korea's Arirang TV. And she was one of the main people who were there every day at the six party talks. Stalking Chris Hill every day. She holds a PhD in international relations from Korea University and MS
in Foreign Service from Georgetown and a BA in English Lit from Syracuse University. Duy Nguyen, thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me. It's great to be back. Great. Terrific. And of course, with us also is Sid Seiler. He's a senior advisor with the career chair at CSIS.
As you all know, he was National Intelligence Officer for North Korea at the National Intelligence Council from 2020 to 2023. And before that, served as U.S. Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks and as Director for Korea on the National Security Council. He is a member of the Senior Intelligence Service and a regular on everything related to Korea at CSIS. So, Sid, it's good to have you. Thank you, Victor. Good to see you again. Great.
So why don't we start the conversation today with these news clips that we've seen out on social media over the weekend with regard to what looked like North Korean troops in a supply line picking up all of their rations and their water and their boots and all sorts of stuff, which, of course, raises this question of whether there really are.
North Korean troops in Russia. I was in Seoul last week. I saw Duyun in Seoul last week. I saw the Ukrainian ambassador in Seoul last week as well. And, you know, there are these reports that these troops may not be in Ukraine, but there certainly may be in Russia. So if this is true, this would be a significant development going beyond simply, I should, it's not even simply, going beyond munitions and ballistic missiles.
to actual troops on the ground. If it's the case, like, why would they do this? Like, why would the North Korean leader do this? And what does this mean for South Korea? We could, of course, talk about what it means for the war. But really, what does it mean for South Korea and for the Yun government and their support of
of the war effort thus far. So I think we should go to Duyen because she's our guest. So Duyen, why don't we go to you first? Well, thanks again so much, Victor. So I think the first question we should ask ourselves is, you know, what are they? Are they engineers and technicians or are they actual combat troops? And I don't think we have a definitive answer to this. Now, the South Korean Intelligence Agency has said that they confirmed
that these soldiers are special forces, but the United States and others have not confirmed this yet. Many military experts and military officials have said that it's probably more likely right now that there are technicians and engineers to go and perhaps observe and monitor how the North Korean weapons systems are doing in the war. And so either way,
Even if these are technicians and engineers, I think the North Koreans would still be learning and observing a lot about war, specifically how well North Korean ammunitions and weapons systems are actually doing and functioning in an actual war against an actual adversary versus what they've been doing until now is just testing and firing things off. So either way, I think that's still a significant piece of lessons learned for North Korea. Now, of course, if there are combat troops, that is a
get a completely different dimension to this war. And North Korean soldiers would, for the first time since the Korean War, be gaining actual combat experience on the ground in a hot war, which South Korea still has not had since the Korean War either. And this current generation of South Korean soldiers also have not been alive
back that they're too young to have actually fought and fought in an actual war. And so, well, I think we'll really have to wait and see exactly who they are, what they're actually doing in Russia. Will they even be deployed to Ukraine? If they are, you know, they could still be engineers and technicians, but would they
have to fight inevitably in the war once they're on the ground? Are they going to be truck drivers? I mean, there are a lot of questions we still need to answer. And I guess it's pretty hard to tell just from these clips that we're seeing what type these are. Like you said, they could be technicians, but...
The NIS has said they could be special forces. It's really hard to tell from the footage what type of person we're talking about here, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, Sid, what are your thoughts on this? I mean, and why would the North Koreans, the North Korean leadership agree to do something like this? I agree with everything, of course, Doohyun said. You know, when we step back and think about
What is implied when one country provides troops to another country's military actions? You know, there's a there's both a very practical dimension to it in terms of a number of Whether it's logistical support missile Unit experts or a regular combat force the type of contributions of the conflict that they can make and there's also the the
the strategic, the symbolic, the solidarity dimension. A country may send a token force that may have very limited actual participation in conflict and still send a strong message of the value they place in the relationship.
and also the mutual commitment that they have both in the letter of something like the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, which goes back to June of this year. The letter of it, which calls on either side to provide means possible as quickly as necessary when one side is
threatened by the other, and also the symbolic part of this. Most recently, Secretary of State Blinken wrote a really good piece for Foreign Affairs where he talks about U.S. concern with these revisionist powers.
Russia China Iran and North Korea is included there. These are powers that are out to overturn the international order You know solidify their autocratic rule at home and also are willing to use force in the pursuit of strategic objectives, you know, North Korea clearly wants to be seen as aligned in this this grouping of countries and
And they're providing this type of support to Russia would have significant symbolic nature. I don't know how it will impact the war on the ground in Ukraine. It will definitely every troop that they have, whether they're directly involved in conflict or not, frees up another Russian soldier to participate in the lethal dimensions of this ongoing conflict.
Going down the road at the the price, you know that is paid back by Russia is support to DPRK military Belligerence and actions towards South Korea then we've got a real problem. And so I think thinking about this in the more strategic implications is You know can help motivate and shape what we do in response. Mm-hmm
I agree. I mean, I think that this is, at a minimum, it's symbolically an important physical manifestation of this security guarantee that they have resurrected from the Cold War. And if North Korean troops actually die in conflict on behalf of Russia, that creates a lot of you owe me frustrations.
from the North Koreans to Putin. So but let me ask you both. So we've we've kind of talked about who these could be, why they're doing it, what the meaning is, potentially important training experience, tech, technical knowledge that they gain from the operation of their systems as well. How how do you think China looks at this? I mean, like we can I clearly see what the North Koreans think they're getting out of this and what the Russians do.
But how do you think the Chinese feel about something like this? I would suspect that this makes Beijing uncomfortable, at the least, to say the least. I do not expect China to overtly make some sort of public announcement or some sort of pressure North Korea and Russia publicly, although I would suspect they might do some of this pressuring privately and quietly and discreetly.
especially considering its strategic competition with the United States, its relationship with Russia. I don't think Beijing would want to see
further escalation of tensions because of the Russia-North Korea military cooperation, because it would have implications for what Beijing is trying to do in the region. So, for example, if there's escalation, if something goes bad, for example, to put it extremely, you know,
and it directly affects the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, that would, in Beijing's view, inevitably lead to perhaps bigger U.S. presence in Asia, a bigger U.S. role, and that could complicate what Beijing is trying to do in the South China Sea and along the Taiwan Strait in terms of trying to exert its influence in the region.
And so, you know, again, to circle back, you know, I think this would make Beijing uncomfortable. I doubt they will be loud about it yet, but I would suspect that they would not want the North Korea-Russia partnership to get any bigger or more serious than it actually is right now. Yeah. Sid, what do you think? You know, obviously China has a long history
time articulated its number one priority in the region of stability and that practically translates into accepting whatever status quo there is. So the idea that one day a nuclear North Korea might destabilize Northeast Asia was never a sufficient motivator for China to do what was necessary during the Six-Party Talks or even going before or definitely since the Six-Party Talks
to constrain North Korea. And so, you know, the threat is growing in a way that is putting more and more risk on China's desire for stability in the region. But for now, the status quo is still manageable. They are troubled by the cooperation with Russia because one, they practically lose the transparency that they otherwise would want into what's going on. And two, because they feel their own limited leverage on North Korea
is eroded by the fact that Moscow is now throwing this lifeline to Pyongyang and Pyongyang is getting in bed with Moscow the way it is. So going forward, again, I think the fact that the North Koreans are there possibly in Russia, eventually maybe even Ukraine, is not as problematic as the support that Russia could provide that would embolden North Korea to act in ways that are otherwise difficult.
unpredictable and detrimental to China's interests. Do you think the Chinese knew about it? Do you think they were informed about this? It's anyone's guess, right? But the speculation or the suspicion is that they perhaps would have been informed by North Korea quietly, not in terms of getting permission from China, but just letting China know, perhaps at the least.
And this has probably been in the works since at least Vladimir Putin's visit to Pyongyang. We see the back and forth, the signs of something, whether we're tracking the vessels going in and out, the aircraft going in and out.
the decision probably goes back to that. And it's hard to believe that during that period, China, whether through intelligence collection, low-level diplomacy, back-channel diplomacy, either from Moscow or Pyongyang, they must have been aware that this was coming. Yeah, but it does still, because your question really does point to a reminder that North Korea-China relations
are really not as tight as we assume they are. They've hit a long time low over the past several years, maybe even the past 10 years even.
And even North Korea and Russia, they're cooperating strategically, militarily, but they're not buddy-buddies either. It's really transactional. I think we need to remember this. And going to the point, a really important point that you raised, Victor, that North Korea might say, you owe me, Russia, if some of our men are killed in action or even if they may not be in action, if they're just technicians and engineers. But you can imagine that North Korea...
He's gotten a really big head now because, you know, since the very beginning of North Korea's existence, it was always the junior partner. And it needed Russia's permission, political permission, economic permission, even permission to even invade South Korea. And now the tables have turned and their big power patron is asking,
smaller country, North Korea, for help on one of the biggest wars that Russia is fighting right now. And so you can imagine, you know, how excited and how much of an ego boost really this is for Kim Jong Un. But at the same time, again, you know, I would suspect that Putin and Kim Jong Un are both are making really hard and cold calculations when it comes to this relationship.
Yeah, no, I think that's right. And that's another thing that worries me in the sense that it is a cold calculation. And Kim knows that Putin needs the munitions, the missiles and the troops. And he could drive a very hard bargain and ask for top of the line supplies.
military technology that would really create problems, I think. So just the last question on this particular topic, we've talked about North Korea, Russia, China. What do you think the impact of this is going to be on South Korea?
and the UN government. We know that they've been very supportive in terms of humanitarian assistance, indirectly supporting in terms of on the munitions side. I don't even know, has the UN government said it? I mean, I assume they've said something with regard to these reports, but I don't know. Do you know, what are you hearing in Seoul? Yes, we've seen the UN government summon the Russian ambassador
ambassador and give him a stern chat in public in the foreign ministry. And we also have seen President Yoon speak with the NATO Secretary General and even agreed to expeditiously, upon NATO's request, send a South Korean delegation to Brussels to basically work on NATO-South Korea intelligence sharing cooperation.
And I believe we've heard media reports say that President Yoon has asked NATO to make it easier for South Korea to even become a member of NATO's information-sharing system, intelligence-sharing system. And so I think this will certainly spur a lot of the cooperation between NATO and South Korea, between European countries and South Korea,
But there's still a debate in Seoul, especially among the policy community and opinion leaders on whether South Korea should directly supply munitions as well. And of course, that's a very politically sensitive topic, as you both know very well. Victor, you did a whole podcast just on that topic.
And there are also those who think that South Korea is missing out on learning about warfare in the 21st century by not supplying munitions. But here, I think I've spoken to some, because I don't have actual military experience, but I've spoken to military officials who say that
But when it comes to learning about warfare, North Korea is perhaps observing and learning how Russia fights a war, which is very different from how the United States fights a war today. And so the difference would be, to put it in very simplistic layman's terms, an old-school style of fighting war versus a very sophisticated, modern way of fighting war. But at the same time,
I think the UN government really is, it sounds like they're really trying to figure out the right formula and how to go about and how to proceed. Because as Sid, as you mentioned, if this does lead to more strategic cooperation in terms of Russia supplying the types of weapons that North Korea needs, then of course this is,
in South Korea's mind, going to be a game changer for them and something that is a grave concern to them. So I have European ambassadors in Korea calling me and asking me because they're concerned about North Korea's potential physical involvement in the war, especially with the reports of sending troops. But of course, you've got the South Korean government just as concerned, if not more, about any type of strategic weapons cooperation between Russia and North Korea.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These are all going to be very difficult areas to have a pragmatic and practical impact. You know, when you hear,
threats, this is a red line and we have to do something about it. My question would be, okay, what would you do about it? If North Korea is committed to providing these troops and Russia is committed to taking them on, I don't know what type of actions you would take, particularly in a way that would actually slow or halt that. The idea that you would use it opportunistically
to seek and promote greater cooperation between the ROK and NATO, you know, makes a lot of sense. And that you would use this from a messaging perspective to remind the world of the threat posed by these rogue autocratic nations, these revisionist powers.
And that you would also condemn North Korea's participation, but probably the symbolism and the messaging is the most important at this point. And also what you can practically do in terms of tightening cooperation with NATO in response.
Yeah, actually, Duya and I were at a ROK NATO conference last week in Seoul. And there seemed to be a lot of talk about more on information sharing, on common standards, things of that nature. So that might be the way in which it goes. And I agree with you, Duya. And I mean, the North Koreans may be gaining battle experience from this if they're engaged in this war, but it will be...
Like World War I battle experience. Yeah, that's right. With the exception of the drones, probably World War I battle experience and not the way the United States fights a war. Okay, great. If we could, I'd like to move to the next topic, which is that we saw over the last couple of weeks, North Korea blowing up a lot of stuff near the border, right? Basically, effectively sealing off the country from any sort of inter-Korean ties.
engagement they sent another wave of trash balloons we count this as the 29th round of trash balloons and I guess the general public and like for people I talked to and I'm sure you're getting a lot of calls lately the sort of core question that people are asking is do you see anything unusual or different I mean these are different types of actions but in at the at the core it's
Is this something that makes you more concerned? Are we moving into a different space now? People have become very accustomed to North Korean belligerence, almost jaded and insensitive to it now. But it seems like in the last couple of weeks, these actions that they have been taking have been creating more concern among the general public, among companies,
among investors in Korea. So I'd love to get your thoughts on are we seeing something different or is this more of the same, you know, what is it, same wine but in different bottles? So, Dooyeon.
Well, you know, I would say that it's different in the sense that they have not blown up a lot. Blowing things up has not been part of their traditional playbook. You know, during his father and grandfather's times, except for the one time when, you know, Victor, you were involved in Six Paradox too, when they blew up the cooling tower. But that was part of
And that was a U.S. proposal to do this, to verify that it was actually taking steps to denuclearize, to disable and denuclearize. But for North Korea to be actually voluntarily blowing things up on their own, some of this is, I think, one, like their nuclear test site before during the previous U.S. administration. I think that was part of their way of saying that...
they actually don't need certain things, so they start blowing them up. More recently, the rail and roads linking the two Koreas. I see these as North Korea demonstrating
or institutionalizing, putting into action Kim Jong-un's rhetoric about severing ties with South Korea, about calling South Korea an enemy state. And really, they've even reportedly-- North Korea said reportedly that they've revised their constitution to label South Korea as an enemy state. And so that revision is institutionalizing this.
Kim Jong-un's rhetoric about this. And so I think it's more of a visible and tangible way of demonstrating that, you know, to really separate the two Koreas, but also to, and we've seen them fortify their ends, their side of the border. And they said that they're going to do this. I mean, they've said that they're going to blow up rail lines and railroads.
They said they're going to be fortifying the border. And I see this also as North Korea's way of visibly and tangibly telling its own people that South Korea really is an enemy state. And to me, my reading of this
and Kim Jong-un's statement earlier calling South Korean enemy state. I see this more for domestic, geared primarily for North Korea's own domestic audiences. By doing this, it's really to help control, to strengthen...
internal control because there have been a lot of reports and increasing beliefs that South Korean dramas and information has really taken a hold in North Korea, that it's really easy for North Koreans to gain access to South Korean dramas and information.
And so this could be one way of Kim Jong-un cracking down. And by labeling South Korea as an enemy state, it gives North Korea legal justification to actually punish its own people if they violate the rules or if they violate the law of, again, you know, violence.
watching K-dramas of being, of having these, you know, what used to be the familiar familial bonds and the feelings of, you know, one civilization and one statehood that used to be the mantra and the objective for a long time ever since his father's, his grandfather's era, actually. Hmm.
So what do you think? I mean, I don't disagree with that, but there's something that's a little bit amiss when you're worried about information penetration of South Korean genres of music, and then you blow up physical things like roads. Right.
I mean, they obviously love the idea that in blowing up things, you've got a highly symbolic expression of anger or condemnation without any lethality involved. Nobody's dying. In 2020, they blew up the joint liaison office up in Kaesong. And it was a significant blow to President Moon Jae-in's North Korea policy because this had become the centerpiece
And North Korea is definitively, irreversibly saying, we don't need no stinking liaison office.
The Kaesong, I mean the Kumgangsan Hotel and other facilities like that, abandoning them and blowing them up, you know, reminds people of the irreversibility. This is not a, the current standoff in North-South relations is not a temporary phenomenon. It is a permanent phenomenon. And therefore, this blowing up the roads and bridges really contributes to that messaging.
As Dooyon mentioned, the fact that the main audience for that is the domestic North Korean population is an important part to remember. I was rereading some of
Kim Jong-un's amplifications of the proclamations he made in January, first early in the year and then kind of amplified at various unit visits, other anniversaries. And he makes it very clear that we, the North Korean people, are not to see those people south of the border as our fellow kin.
And that does open up everything from justifying the crackdown on information flows
to moving to some type of more confrontational footing with South Korea. I still believe, as many do, that this is a longer term, you know, meaning not the next six months, but perhaps, you know, the other side of the election, the idea that, you know, the Constitution is whatever revisions were made or will be made that would redefine boundaries and
would provide an opportunity for North Korea to challenge South Korea to see, for example, if North Korea declares the northern limit line null and void and declare a willingness to use force to defend the North Korea-defined boundary, would South Korea use force
to reinforce it. That type of test makes a lot of sense for me early on after we see who's going to be occupying the White House in January to help shape our policy and also to help, again, attack and undermine South Korea. It's President Yoon. It's his policy.
So that all remains possible. But for now, I don't see this blowing up as suggesting they're going to start blowing things up south of the DMZ. And that's when we really need to worry. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we've seen, you know, Victor and Sadi both have studied and observed North Korea for decades. And, you know, we've seen them push the envelope just enough
short of inviting an actual war or short of inviting a kinetic response from the United States and South Korea. And they've been using a range of gray zone tactics to do just that because, you know, they believe that South Korea, the United States will not retaliate with actual force. You know, but
I agree with everything that Sid had said. I think as a thought exercise, a question can be asked whether blowing these things up and severing ties, institutionalizing that they're two separate states, and fortifying their border, does that...
Is that another data point that supports what North Korea had said, that they're preparing for war? And of course, when Kim Jong-un said that they're preparing for war, it doesn't mean that he's decided to go to war. But are these just all the building blocks to later justify more aggressive actions in the future?
Right, and that's at the heart of the national intelligence estimate, right? How do you know when we're in a zone of coercive actions, similar to what we've seen for seven decades,
As regrettable as they have been, they've been containable. Cheonanham did not lead to war. Yom Kippur shelling did not lead to war. Burma bomb blasts. So you know the list of the use of force coercively. Now the use of force backed by nuclear weapons builds another level of concern over escalation. But as long as the intent is not to go to war...
It may not be deterrable, but it is de-escalatable. When is North Korea moving into the revisionist actions that have the greater strategic goals, that have the greater likelihood of the use of force, that take the lessons learned from what Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine and applies it to the peninsula to seek to
drive the US forces off the peninsula, establish a domination of the South and then enter some type of parasitical relationship where South Korea is shaken down for money, money and aid goes into North Korea, it survives, it dominates the peninsula.
When do we move from this coercive into the revisionist area? And so Doohyun is right on in saying, you know, these are the types of things we need to be looking at now in terms of the capabilities being developed, the rhetoric being deployed, the justification being formed, et cetera. Yeah. And just to piggyback on, you know, your last couple of points, you know, I think it's safe to assume that Kim Jong-un is,
very intently studying and observing and learning from the Russian war in Ukraine, specifically how America reacts to an adversary when they do use force to claim what they claim is their territory. Will this provide lessons for North Korea on how it would later in the future, if it decides to formulate how it would move in on South Korea, whether it's
along the south of the northern limit line, the de facto maritime border, or whether it's actually across the 38th parallel in some future circumstance.
um but you know and so this is offering lessons for i think for kim jong-un um but i but i but the question of will they move into revisionist you know it's really it's anyone's guess obviously it's kim jong-un would probably know this better than anybody else if he does if he has even made these calculations yet but i would also suspect that kim jong-un might wait to see what china does with taiwan first before it starts to
um behave in a revisionist way so that it can gain more lessons and more data points on how america and the international community might react to if and when china does make a move on taiwan so analytically is it possible to define a priori what that signpost looks like like you said sitting in the transition from you know coercion sort of course of bargaining to revisionism it's very hard to define that uh
In advance, right? In some sense, we would only know it after it happened. I would think, and this is why I've advocated a long time in looking at the value of particularly open source and rhetoric and public statements.
And we have now with some reporting coming out, whether it's through Daily NK or other sources who know what the marketplace looks like, what I used to call, what's the price of rice for today? A sense of what's going on on the ground in North Korea and the idea that if they're moving to a revisionist threshold,
they will have to prepare and posture their forces in a way that's fundamentally different than what they do, for example, with the Cheonan I'm thinking or Yeom Pyong-do showing where you really, the confidence that you could have riding through that, this goes to August 2015 landmine incident, was we saw no other indication Pyongyang was preparing for war.
that they were not putting their forces on a footing that looked like they anticipated some imminent response from Iraq-U.S. forces. I think if they're going up to that revisionist level,
that we would see a deterioration in the diplomatic environment, a shift in rhetoric in a way that's not exactly predictively valuable in locking down the type and time of this revisionist action.
But then also a posturing of the Korean people. I did this for 40 years. The number of semi-war states that we went to that never went anywhere, or the more recent proclamation that one point some million youth had signed up and volunteered for the KPA. Yeah, I've seen that. We've gone through that before. That's not the type of indication. We would see something particularly different.
So stockpiling of rice, forward posture forces, maybe not selling all your ammunition to Russia. There you go. There you go. But, you know, that could be the investment. You sell your ammunition now. You use this as an opportunity to refurbish and...
your munitions industry and then that lays the groundwork for something more sustainable than would have been if we didn't have this DPRK Russia cooperation. Can I ask you something else? So a minute ago, one of you said that this is, I think, Duy, you said that part of this is for a domestic audience in North Korea. Mm-hmm.
but this idea the permanence of sort of saying enemy state no more unification uh physically blowing up everything in between them isn't that also a statement about south korean domestic politics by the north saying that like this is we mean this is permanent and it doesn't matter who's in government in south korea whether it's yodang or yadang it doesn't matter right because
conservatives or progressives, it doesn't matter. Is there something intended in this with regard to South Korean domestic politics also? Yeah, I think you raise a very compelling point. And I wouldn't be surprised if that is a factor too. It may not be the primary factor, but we've seen North Korea kill many birds with one stone. So they usually have multiple objectives with every move or every statement that they make. But I think
I think you're onto something because we've seen, you know, historically or traditionally, North Korea has always been, you know, very favorable and chummy chummy with a progressive South Korean administration and South Korean progressives. And they've always favored and wanted and even tried to meddle in South Korean presidential elections to try to make sure that a progressive wins.
But we've seen in the previous South Korean progressive during the Moon Jae-in administration that, you know, that that relationship can completely turn on a dime under a Kim Jong-un regime. And he went from being friendly and having engaging in some retreat with Moon Jae-in to completely bullying South Korea and not caring at all. And so I think now North Korea seems to be saying that it really doesn't matter who is in North Korea.
it's no longer called the blue house but the presidential office in south korea and even who is in the white house too it seems that a lot of their so-called provocations are really you know aimed at fulfilling their own again domestic agenda their national strategic agenda first regardless of what happens outside
of the peninsula regardless of what who's in the white house in the united states regardless of what kind of deal any american president is willing to make with or propose with north korea until it feels ready
to actually come out. And so, but at the same time, you know, going back to, you know, Victor, your point, you know, of course, what North Korea, I mean, we've even heard some prominent progressive South Korean leaders echo the same things that North Korea said by saying, oh, yeah, let's just forget about North Korea.
unification too. Let's let's why don't we it's logical to have a two state situation and that of course angered a lot of people, moderates, conservatives and even some progressives by having one former progressive political leader say this in public. And so and you know, and a lot of people are saying this goes against like thousands of years of Korean history and civilization to accept
North Korea's. Right. That was a very sloppy, I don't think well thought through response, but I think it does reflect. Not do you. Not mine. Not your team. The Mr. So-and-so's comment. Because, you know, the more sophisticated response, which is...
Yeah, this is North Korea saying this now, but they can change on a dime. And the reason they're doing this is because like his predecessors, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, President Yoon has taken an unnecessarily dangerous posture, has gotten close to the U.S., has undermined the ROK relationship with China, and all this needs to be fixed.
And those who, you know, but it's clear that North Korea has been sending the signal that they're sick and tired of dealing with anybody in South Korea, left or right. The nuance on it is lost, I think, with progressives. And that's good. You know, keep hope alive.
You know, the idea that I would say, you know, look at Dust Off George Orwell's 1984 and, you know, reorient yourself, re-familiarize yourself with how easy these controlled media can turn truth on its head so that a breakthrough and a new leadership in Youngstown presidential office
would provide opportunities for two hostile states to renew old ties. It's not a done deal. So there's enough room for optimism. And I don't think that the progressives have fully, it's similar to the people who say, you know, come next January, if President Trump is elected, the love letters resume.
No, Pyongyang has already signaled that it doesn't trust any leader in the United States. So there's a learning curve, but that also, that's from a negative perspective. From a positive perspective, it leaves open the possibility that all this can be overturned. You blew up a liaison office. You blew up some roads and rails.
That's all a thing of the past. We can rebuild them. And it can be overturned because of how North Korea's system operates. It's Kim Jong-un. If he wants it to be law, it's law. If he wants to overturn the law, he can overturn the law and reverse the law at some point in the future. But I think we also have to remember that when it comes to them saying no to unification, it wasn't literally no to unification yet.
in its entirety, he actually said no to peaceful unification. And Kim Jong Un has explicitly said that he would use nuclear weapons in a crisis situation to reunify the Korean Peninsula. And this is something that, you know, of course, is a grave concern for South Koreans. And North Korea has always had one of the tools in their toolbox has been reunification by force to reunify under the North Korean flag. And so this is
something that, you know, it should not be taken lightly. So we only have a minute left. So and you've already kind of referred to it. But but let me just ask for our last round quickly. So what does this all mean for relations with the United States? There's been virtually no dialogue between the Biden administration and North Korea. Obviously, we have our elections coming up. But what what is all of this?
All this with regard to blowing up inter-Korean roads, nullifying unification, what does that mean for dialogue with the US? I think I know the answer to it, but let me ask the question anyway. I don't think we've been in a situation like this where North Korea has so little interest in or need for a dialogue with the United States. What it needs, practically speaking, it is going to be able to get from Russia.
its ability to assert its claim that it doesn't need to denuclearize, that pressure and sanctions are all a failure, and that countries should be recognizing North Korea for who it is, accept it for who it is. And look, we've got an example here in Russia that's showing
what our allies can be and anybody else we don't have the time for, no need for it. So they'll play hard to get. That doesn't mean at some point, you know, Chae Sun-hee or some other foreign policy expert in North Korea doesn't conceive of some type of play they would run, you know, against the United States to kind of explore possibilities, what could be had, again, without putting their program on the table in any significant way. You can't rule that out completely, but for now it would be very surprising, I think.
considering how little they need the United States right now. Absolutely. And, you know, 100%, I agree with what Sid said. And not to repeat everything, but just to add that, you know, we've seen Kim Jong-un
during symmetry with the previous US administration, they did not seem desperate at all. And these were new indicators, new data points, because before, during his father's time and his grandfather's time, they would act out of so-called desperation. They would try to
get whatever they can get, whether even if they're like breadcrumbs, you know, and they're literally what it was food aid back then. But during the Trump administration, we've seen a Kim Jong Un regime ask for the big ticket items and no longer forget about food and biscuits. That's not that's that's
beneath us. That's basically how they were behaving. And also, you know, precisely what Sid was saying, you know, they've got, they had, they always had China that will never let North Korea collapse, but now they've got Russia. And so, again, there's no desperation on the part of North Korea. And they've
Kim Jong Un has announced a whole laundry list of types of high tech weapons that he wants to develop. And so they need to, in their point of view, they need to meet those milestones first. And so that's all time. And so again, like there's really no urgency for North Korea to speak with the United States, which will make a lot of sense.
the next u.s administration even the one after that far more difficult to try to open dialogue with north korea and if history recent history is any guide north korea would not talk about the nuclear issue with their working level counterpart it would have it had to just be at the leader level at the summit level um and if that continues if that has become their playbook now in terms of
North Korean so-called diplomacy, then it'll be very difficult to have traditional foreign policy style of diplomacy. And even if a future US administration wants to have some sort of summit with North Korea, they're not going to want to do it in the way that the world operates. Because it will be a summit level meeting in which United States acknowledges, tolerates, accepts
ignores whatever, but the nuclear weapons status in North Korea, which it's hard to imagine any
U.S. administration, any president would want to do. Which you have said for quite some time is certainly the diplomatic goal of North Korea's nuclear weapons program is de facto acceptance as a nuclear weapons state. Well, I hate to end on that bad note. I mean, there's much more to discuss here. We didn't even get to talk about the European reaction to North Korean troops in Russia. We'll have to save that for the next episode. But thank you, Sid. Thank you, Duyon, for joining us.
Thank you to all our viewers and listeners for watching another episode of The Impossible State. We'll see you again soon.